Becoming a Project Leader: Blending Planning, Agility, Resilience, and Collaboration to Deliver Successful Projects

This book blends academic rigor and real world experience on the agile and planning schools of project management and the process of becoming a project leader.

To some, project management is all about logically and rationally planning out dependencies and mapping them out into a flawless plan; a plan that must be rigorously and undeviatingly followed in all its geometric perfection. To others it is about agility – 15 minute scrum meetings and responding on the fly to the unpredictable exigencies that the randomness of the living, breathing world throws up.

In reality, smart project leaders do both. They understand that you can’t deliver a project if you make an “either/or” choice between these approaches – you must do “both/and”. These managers strive for stability and flexibility, they use formal and informal processes, and they function as managers and leaders.

In Becoming A Project Leader the authors have applied their blend of intellectual rigor and hard-nosed practical experience to identify four concrete roles employed by successful project managers. The first three roles—planning, agility, and resilience—focus on coping with changes, with each role relating to a different kind of change. These three roles, which complement each other, can be implemented effectively only when they are supported by the fourth role, collaboration. Becoming an expert at understanding and delivering that blend requires constant reflection and interaction with peers – all part of the process of becoming a project leader.

Based on years of experience, research and thinking and refined through 20 in-depth interviews with practicing project managers and senior executives, Becoming A Project Leader delivers the solution to all those blown budgets, shot schedules and disappointing deliverables.

Dr. Alexander Laufer is the director of the Consortium for Project Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an industry consultant (whose clients include Motorola and NASA), and a chaired professor of civil engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. He has served as the director of the Center for Project Leadership at Columbia University. Dr. Laufer is the author or coauthor of six books; the two most recent ones are Mastering the Leadership Role in Project Management: Practices that Deliver Remarkable Results (FT Press, 2012) and Breaking the Code of Project Management (Macmillan, 2009).

Terry Little was the Department of Defense’s most seasoned manager of major programs, with more than 25 years’ experience leading major weapons acquisitions. Also one of the department’s most forceful advocates for program management innovation, Little is considered by many to be the best program manager in recent DoD history. Mr. Little served as executive director of the Missile Defense Agency—the senior civilian in an organization of approximately 8,000 employees—while also directing the $14 billion Kinetic Energy Interceptor Program. Currently, he consults on acquisition leadership and business development with The Spectrum Group and with Modern Technology Solutions and is an honorary professor at the Defense Systems Management College. Mr. Little holds an MS in systems analysis from the Air Force Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of West Florida.

Dr. Jeffrey S. Russell is Vice Provost for Lifelong Learning, Dean of Continuing Studies, and Executive Director of the Consortium for Project Management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Russell has earned a reputation as a leader in innovative project delivery systems and has served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Management in Engineering and as founding editor-in-chief of Leadership and Management in Engineering. He is a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), has been elected to the National Academy of Construction (NAC) and as Fellow of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE).

Bruce Maas is the Vice Provost for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a position he has held since August 2011. Prior to that, he served for seven years as the CIO at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Maas has served as the director of the EDUCAUSE Leadership Institute, the leading professional association for information technology in higher education, and he is presently serving as the board chair. Maas holds an MS in administrative leadership from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as well as bachelor degrees in Accounting and MIS.